The Big Day

Sitting in front of the LA COnvention Center is a tank. Not an air tank (This is LA), not a water tank (we are in a heat wave, where it’s been like a bajillion degrees), but a tank. In fact, it’s the Anglerfish tank from “Girls Und Panzer” and a way for Sentai Filmworks (and what a bad name for a company, like calling yourself ‘Corm Movies’) to promote all of its offerings. Well, I was ready to go, dressed as Akira from “Tsuritama”. I even had my duck, but things got off to a bad start.

The panel I wanted to see “Anime vs Hollywood” and who wins with these anime-to-film translations (actually, we lose; Hollywood does not have a good track record for that) got cancelled. I went to the FUNimation.com panel instead. I have a problem with panels like that, as it is more of a way to let people know what their upcoming offerings are going to be and how wonderful we are. The only real good news they had was that the website was being revamped and would be less finicky as it had been, plus their new content and the numerous ways they would be bringing it to you. Tweet,Face, Tumblr; name it. They will get it to you

How many videos do they have on the site? “Well, it’s over 9000!” Yes, they actually said that.

I grabbed a couple of episodes of Inuyasha: The Final Act.” Now, if you just came to this series, you would be left in the dust, as they jump right into it and you would need to have some background as to who everyone is and what they are doing in the show. I had followed the show for about 40 episodes before it got yanked from my On Demand list, so I wasn’t that hard to follow.

I then went to the Anime News Network panel (as they were giving away stuff). They were celebrating 15 years, so we got a brief history of things with them, but this started a bad trend for this room, as it started late, as the panel before them started late, which meant that the shows that followed were also running late. The one things they did comment on is that they feel “Pacific Rim” is going to tank. They have no faith that, basically, a giant fighting robot film would be all that successful, as Hollywood “doesn’t get it.” I did want to see the Sentai Filmworks panel, but I had to leave it to catch the movie “Wolf Children” (a review will follow, even though I don’t do movies).

This is a big problem at a convention: you can’t get to everywhere you want to be and when the time gets all messed up, you get all messed up.

After grabbing a dinner, I high-tailed it back to get Evangelion 1.11: You are (Not) Alone”. This one was an experiment for me, as I was aware of things, but I hadn’t seen anything of it, so I wondered if I could see it and not play catch-up. Although they gave slight background, I was playing catch-up on things (a review of this one will follow at a later date), so I decided to pass on Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance. I was also getting tired. I have a lot of respect for people who can go from 5 am to 5 am the next day. Some of those guys just do not sleep.